This invention relates to a machine head for stringed musical instruments, and deals more particulary with a machine head having as its holding device a rotatable peg connected through a drive mechanism, such as worm gearing, to a manually operable handle, the peg having a transverse hole normal to its longitudinal axis for the passing through of a string.
In conventional machine heads of the above described kind, for example as used on guitars, a string in tight condition usually winds around the peg of its associated machine head with several windings. After a certain tuning tension is reached, the string winds around the peg so tightly that it cannot slide and the tuning tension is maintained. However, on instruments which have a tremolo device, the string tension is released for short periods of time by using the tremolo device. In doing so, the windings around the peg may loosen and the string may slide slightly on the peg. That means, the string will not again reach its original tuning tension, and therefore not regain its original tuning, after releasing the tremolo device.
In order to eliminate this difficulty, there is already described a machine head in European patent application EP-A No. 2-0167512 in which a screw can be screwed in, in the axial direction from the free end of the peg, and wherein the string is bent around the threaded section of the screw and clamped between the screw head and the frontal end of the peg. Since the string is already stretched by hand when clamping by the screw, a small turn of the peg is subsequently enough to tension the string to the correct tone or pitch. When now using the tremolo device, even a reduction for a short time of the string tension cannot cause the string to slide and lose its tuning.
The disadvantage of this solution is that the clamp areas will produce friction on the string when tightening the screw so that the covering of the string can be damaged. A further danger is that during the tuning the string will squeeze into the slot between the two clamp areas, whereby it enters only gradually into the slot in this way that it will reach its final position according to the desired tuning. Finally, the clamping of the string is rather troublesome, since one has to be very careful that the string end, wound around the screw shaft, does not slip out between the clamp areas when the screw is tightened by one hand.
The object of the invention is to provide a machine head, of the above mentioned kind, allowing the safe clamping of a string by a most simple operation and without the danger of damaging the string.